VIDEO: Blades beat Gwinnett again in game featuring goalie fight

Eight players including the team's two goalies duke it out in a classic hockey brawl

Video by Woody Wommack

ESTERO - There was a penalty shot goal, an all-out brawl including a fight between the two goalies and a victory by the home team. In other words, if Wednesday night's Florida Everblades 6-2 victory over the Gwinnett Gladiators was your first-ever hockey game, you left with a smile on your face.

The Everblades thrilled the crowd of 5,769 in the final home game of the calendar year, taking command early and never relinquishing the lead as they earned their second straight victory over last place Gwinnett. Florida heads into a four-day holiday break having won back-to-back games, and sits just three points behind Greenville for the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.

With the Everblades up 4-2 at the 12:39 mark of the second period, a typical hockey fight between Florida's Jared Staal and Gwinnett's Paul Flache broke out near the boards behind Florida's goal. When the game's officials went to break it up, Florida's Ethan Graham and Drew Larman engaged in fights with Gwinnett's Danick Paquette and Sam Roberts, respectively.

As the two fights raged on, Graham fell to the ice and had his head repeatedly slammed down by Paquette. With the officials tied up with Staal and Flache, Florida goalie Bobby Goepfert intervened, leaving the crease to check Paquette into the boards. This action caught the attention of Gwinnett goalie Billy Sauer, who left his crease and skated into the fracas to challenge Goepfert.

"I don't really know what started it I just looked over and saw Paquette, who is the Sean Avery of our league, going at Graham when he clearly didn't want to fight," Goepfert said. "I did what any teammate would do and defended our guy."

With the crowd on its feet, the two goalies duked it out near center ice, where Goepfert eventually got the best of Sauer.

"It's not the size of the dog…," joked the 5-foot-10 Goepfert after besting the 6-foot-2 Sauer. "But more importantly the game went well and we got a big win going into the break."

The fight resulted in a combined total of 65 penalty minutes, including match penalties for Goepfert and Sauer.

Because Paquette and Flache were both assessed double minor penalties, the Everblades came out of the brawl with a 5-on-3 advantage. Florida immediately converted, taking a 5-2 lead at the 12:49 mark of the period on a goal by Alexandre Imbeault.

Staal scored with 0.4 seconds remaining in the game to give Florida the final 6-2 advantage.